Located on Guanabara Bay just a few blocks from the heart of downtown Rio de Janeiro, during the 1990s Santos-Dumont began to outgrow its capacity, besides diverging from its specialization on short-hop flights, offering routes to many destinations in Brazil.
For this reason, in late 2004 Santos-Dumont returned to its original condition of operating only shuttle flights to and from Congonhas Airport in São Paulo, along with regional aviation.
The passenger terminal has been recently remodeled and expanded to offer more convenience and comfort to users of the Rio-São Paulo "air bridge" shuttle service.